1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing and inspecting a disk drive head gimbal assembly (hereafter referred to as an HG assembly), and in particular to a method for forming and inspecting a joint on an HG assembly slider terminal and head lead.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring now to FIG. 27, a conventional ultrasonic connection between a slider 180 and a lead 182 is shown. A bonding pad 181 on a front end plane 180a of slider 180 is ultrasonically connected to lead 182. A wedge 183 on an ultrasonic bonder (not shown) presses the elements in the direction of arrow S as ultrasonic vibrations are applied to bonding pad 181 and lead 182 in the directions of arrows T and U.
The front end 182a of lead 182 is adjacent to bonding pad 181. The front end of wedge 183 is pointed in order to concentrate vibration energy on the joint.
The front-end plane 183a of the wedge 183 and the front-end plane 180a of the slider 180 are kept almost parallel by a not-illustrated connector.
Moreover, to perform ultrasonic connection, the left-side plane 180b of the slider 180 is brought into contact with a position controller 188 and a holder 187 for holding the slider 180 is normally pressed by a flat spring from the right of the holder 187 through a suspender 189 to press the slider 180 against the position controller 188 and fix it.
FIG. 28 is an illustration for explaining a method for inspecting a deformed shape of the lead 182 after connected and a joint. The ultrasonic-connected lead 182 is held by a damper 185 held by a pulling inspection jig 184 nearby the joint and pulled in the right top direction (direction of arrow V) in the drawing. Thereby, the lead 182 is broken or the joint is separated and the connected state is checked while referring to the then tension.
A set of bonding pads are ultrasonically connected to a set of leads. The bonding pads are formed on a predetermined plane of a slider held by a slider holder accessible to the recording plane of a disk in a disk drive. The leads are held by the slider holder and have joints that are formed so as to respectively face each of the bonding pads. A front end plane of a wedge working on the joints is tilted in a direction in which the first sides of the joints correspond to external connection sides. The ultrasonic connection is completed by pressing the joints of the leads against the faced boding pads.
When ultrasonic-connecting a plurality of bonding pads formed on a slider integrally fixed to a flexure accessible to the recording plane of a disk of a disk drive with a plurality of leads which are fixed to at least the platform of the flexure and whose joints are formed so as to respectively face each of the bonding pad, the side plane of a wedge working on the joints of the leads facing the platform is not tapered in order to perform ultrasonic connection by pressing the joints of the leads against the faced bonding pads.
When ultrasonic-connecting a plurality of bonding pads formed on a slider held by a slider holder accessible to the recording plane of a disk of a disk drive through elastic means with a plurality of leads which is held by the slider holder and whose joints are formed so as to respectively face each of the faced bonding pads, front ends of the leads are arranged so as to be located outside of the range of the bonding pads.
When ultrasonic-connecting a plurality of bonding pads formed on a slider held by a slider holder accessible to the recording plane of a disk of a disk drive through an elastic body with a plurality of leads whose joints are formed so as to respectively face each of the bonding pads, movement of the slider in the vibrational direction is fixed by a position controller for controlling the position of the slider at least one side of the vibrational direction under ultrasonic connection and a working unit for pressing the slider against the controller by directly working on the slider from the other side of the vibrational direction.
When ultrasonic-connecting a plurality of bonding pads formed on a predetermined plane of a slider held by a slider holder accessible to the recording plane of a disk of a disk drive with a plurality of leads which is held by the slider holder and whose joints are formed so as to respectively face each of the bonding pads, movement of a wedge working on the joints of the leads is monitored in order to perform ultrasonic connection by pressing the joints against the faced bonding pads to stop the ultrasonic connection in accordance with the movement information showing the movement of the wedge. When inspecting a slider in which a plurality of bonding pads formed on the slider held by a slider holder accessible to the recording plane of a disk of a disk drive is ultrasonic-connected with a plurality of leads which is held by the slider holder and whose joints are formed so as to respectively face each of the bonding pads when inspecting the joints between the slider and the leads, a connected state is inspected by pressing a pushpin against vicinities of the ultrasonic-connected joints of the leads.